by Elton Gahr

Created on: October 29, 2009

Red has good mana production, good creature removal and generally good creatures, but it has always had one weakness. That weakness is that it tends to run out of cards before the opponent is completely dead. This is because many of its best spells and abilities are inexpensive and more temporary advantage than those in other colors, but with the right cards this disadvantage can be overcome and may even be an advantage.

Sensation Gorger is a rare goblin Shaman from the morningtide expansion set of magic the gathering. It costs two red and one colorless to put into play and is a 2/2 creature. Its ability reads "Kinship - At the beginning of your upkeep, you may look at the top card of your library. If it shares a creature type with Sensation Gorger, you may reveal it. If you do, each player discards his or her hand and draws four cards."

The key to getting value out of this card then is to ensure that you have as few cards in your hand as possible when this card goes off while your opponent has as many as possible. This will give you the maximum card advantage for this card.

One of the best ways to ensure your hand is largely empty while your opponents is full is land destruction, but sadly land destruction has become a smaller part of the modern magic the gathering card base and so the ability to truly keep your opponents land base down is difficult. For this reason it is useful to play a deck with cards that can be disposed of quickly, especially since once you have began to use the ability of Sensation Gorger you will want to continue.

The obvious choice is lightning bolt. This will not only allow you to do damage to the opponent but get rid of creatures when they are able to put them into play. And since it is only one red mana and an instant you can play it before you use Sensation Gorger's ability. This will aid considerably in keeping your opponent down.

Also of value are small goblins. These are important of course because they will trigger the ability. For this reason it is also valuable to look at are spells with the goblin type. There are very few of these but they are reasonably good and will aid considerably because they are generally easy to cast and will make the ability work more often.

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